The punkin has been chunked. Or the pumpkin has been chucked. There are many colloquialisms within our tight-knit school community, but no matter what you call it, one and all clamored for a flinging.
We gathered at the end of the building that is not mine to observe this very special occasion. Let the record show that there were four contraptions built to hurl pumpkins. Three were of the same design as The Pony and Crew, and one used a counterweight.
Lest the builders forget their roots, they used a bag of deer feed to weight the front of their chucker. A clever idea indeed, because after a few chucks, the machine had a malfunction. The plumber's tape sheared in half. Nobody was hurt. The team continued to fling by manual methods, which was seen as cheating by others whose machines malfunctioned and didn't think of it.
There was no official winner. Pumpkins were chucked, some were chunked, and a good time was had by all spectators whiling away 25 minutes outdoors before early dismissal for a teacher inservice day.
All in all, not a bad showing for a student-designed and student-built pumpkin chucker.
This required a video.
ReplyDeletePea shooters, egg drops, pumpkin chunkin'...whatever passes the day. I'll bet it was fun to watch.
ReplyDeleteOh this is cool. Yes a video would have been awesome:) B
ReplyDeleteIt has a whiff--to me--of being a time-sucker, fabricated by teachers all-too-eager to shirk their duties.
ReplyDeleteShame.
Shame on you.
I love science.
ReplyDeleteWho cleaned up the mess?
ReplyDeleteLock and Load! Watch out for falling punkins! Wondering they call it a catapult? Was the original ammo feline?
ReplyDeletejoeh,
ReplyDeleteSurely you are not suggesting that Val should learn how to take a video!
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Linda,
The hype was not lived up to.
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Buttons,
Even if I DID know how to take a video, it's kind of hard to keep the faces of a teeming mass of adolescents out of it.
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Sioux,
I'm as eager to shirk duties as the next educator, but this was not something I endorsed. Why would I want to stand for 25 minutes amidst 300 students when I could be sitting on my ever-spreading butt with 20 of them? This grand performance actually pushed a test one day forward. Much to the dismay of Val, yet not to the testees. (heh, heh, I said TESTEES!)
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Catalyst,
That's the way to Val Thevictorian's heart.
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Stephen,
I suspect the chuckers did the scrubbing. I didn't hang around to watch that part.
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Leenie,
I thought the original ammo was diseased corpses. But what do I know? I just learned that England is an ISLAND!
I always thought punkin chunking was an activity that the writers of Modern Family made up. The colander is a nice touch.
ReplyDeleteTammy,
ReplyDeleteLet the record show that all four of the chunkin' contraptions had a colander as the pumpkin seat. Kind of like a stock car for NASCAR, they all had the same basic parts.